


Harvey

by Salchat



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-16
Updated: 2020-02-16
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:00:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22752889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Salchat/pseuds/Salchat
Summary: It's not easy, living and working in the Pegasus Galaxy, especially when you're the Chief Science Officer of the Atlantis Expedition, and it appears that the pressure has finally taken its toll on Dr Meredith Rodney McKay.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 17





	1. Chapter 1

He tried to ignore it at first, putting it down to too little sleep, too much coffee, too much stress, just too much Pegasus. His mind skated over the possibility of its being alien, or at least a symptom of some kind of alien influence, but, hey, what wasn't round here? And, really, it wasn't doing any harm, although to be frank, he could have done without the looks of amused tolerance it kept giving him; as if _he_ were the figment of _its_ imagination, for heaven's sake! Or symptom of caffeine overload, or whatever... His thoughts wandered a little way down that path and then scuttled back to what passed for reality, hands over their eyes, refusing to even consider that he, Meredith Rodney McKay, PhD, PhD, was the imaginary one and the giant whale hovering just over his shoulder like some kind of surreal helium balloon, was some kind of alien entity with a mind of such complexity that _it_ had invented _him_.

oOo

Rodney had been working late, as usual, and had fallen asleep over his work bench, as usual. His waking was not usual, however, in that, bleary-eyed though he had been, crumpled and with dried tracks of saliva marking his chin, he had swiftly become aware of a huge presence, hovering just above the level of his left shoulder. A certain incoherence ensued, together with a heavy impact as he tipped backward off his stool, arms and legs flailing. He ended up stuffed into a corner, as small as he could make himself, his arms over his head, trembling, eyes tightly shut.

Nothing happened. The early-morning silence of his lab surrounded Rodney and he tentatively opened his eyes and blinked into the semi-darkness of his sheltering arms. His eyes slowly tracked to the right and then, more slowly, to the left. He swallowed and, very softly, whimpered; there was still something there, above him, large and unmoving. He closed his eyes again and existed, for a time, safely in the darkness, where large, floating 'somethings' simply didn't venture. Rodney considered his position: the likelihood of Zelenka finding him curled up like a frightened mouse in the corner of his lab, versus the likelihood of the 'something' harming him, simply because he opened his eyes to turn and look at it. It hadn't harmed him thus far, after all. Logic prevailed. Rodney opened his eyes and turned his head, peering up from underneath his protecting arms.

And there it was. Not precisely a whale or a flagisallus, but a composite of the two. Blue-gray skin, or possibly very large, smooth scales, fading to white on its underbelly, huge waggling fins, the occasional glimpse of a bipartite, horizontal tail, and, although Rodney had been avoiding looking up at its head for fear of a murderous eye and sharp teeth, when at last he did, he beheld a long, straight mouth, low down on its head and slightly turned up, at the corner visible to him. Then Rodney looked it in the eye. He stared into the oval and uttered a small 'oh!' of surprise. The eye was mostly black pupil, with a thin rim of blue; a dark, deep-sea, navy blue. It regarded him, as Rodney perceived it, with tolerance; slightly amused and with wells of patience as deep as the ocean itself.

Rodney uncurled and sighed deeply.

"Well, this is it, then, I suppose," he remarked, tiredly. "I've finally lost it. And in the grand style too! No doing anything by halves, no pussy-footing around the issue. Straight over the edge and into stark, raving madness for Dr Rodney McKay."

oOo

Rodney knew he should head straight for the infirmary and submit himself for testing and, no doubt, psychiatric evaluation, but he didn't want to go back to Earth and he considered that a giant imaginary whale would qualify, quite firmly, as his ticket home. So, he decided he'd carry on, pretend he was fine, see how things went. Maybe, after a good night's sleep, a few good meals and a little less caffeine, the thing would just disappear.

So, he ignored it. Rodney didn't think he could ignore it to the extent necessary to carry on with a completely normal day, however. He marched straight to the mess hall, his left hand against the side of his face, blinkering his vision. There, he stocked up on the meagre choice available at that time in the morning and took the whole lot back to his room. He'd wait until a more sociable hour, and then radio Elizabeth, tell her he was taking the day off, that he was sick or something. Rodney turned the lights off, got into bed and pulled the comforter over his head.

oOo

The door chimed and Rodney knew that it would be John and that if he didn't answer the door, John would just come in anyway. Rodney had been congratulating himself, having napped, radioed Elizabeth, eaten, napped again and then set up his laptop to do some work, because he felt that achieving those things under such trying circumstances was something to be celebrated. In order to focus on his work, he'd taped a piece of paper to the left side of his face and had forgotten about it when he went to the door.

"McKay!" said John, looking strangely at him, and for a moment Rodney thought John could see the whale too. "Er... you've got a..." John reached forward and pulled off the sheet of paper, and some of Rodney's skin with it. He waved the paper at Rodney. "What are you doing, Rodney? Elizabeth said you were sick."

"Oh, er, well, yes," floundered Rodney. "I'm not feeling so good, so..."

"What's this for?" interrupted John, flapping the piece of paper again.

Rodney snatched it back.

"Nothing! That is... I must have put my head down on the table and it got stuck to my face and I didn't notice it and then..."

"McKay!" John interrupted again.

"Yes?"

"Are you alright?" John looked concerned and Rodney had a moment's impulse just to tell him, to lay the whole thing out there so that he didn't feel so alone. But he wasn't alone, that was the problem, dammit!

"I'm okay! I just haven't been sleeping. And... and I have a headache!"

"Well..." said John, sceptically, his eyes flicking around Rodney's room as if he might find some clue to the reason for his friend's shiftiness. "You know where I am." He tapped his earpiece. "Call me if you need anything."

"Oh. Yes. Thanks." Rodney let the door close. He turned and trailed over to his bed and sat down, disconsolately.

"You're still there, aren't you?" he said, staring at the floor. "Oh, who am I trying to kid?" continued Rodney. "I'm crazy and it's not just going to go away by itself." He looked around his room, already thinking about having to say goodbye to its familiarity and being sent back to Earth. "I'll just go and see Carson now," he said, without moving. Out of the corner of his eye, the large presence next to him bobbed up and down, gently.

Rodney's relationship with whales, fictional, oneiric or alien, was decidedly ambivalent. On the one hand, there was the Moby Dick issue. When the novel had been read to Rodney as a child, he had been horrified by the idea of a huge creature of "intelligent malignity" lurking in the depths of the ocean, and that horror had remained in his nightmares ever since. On the other hand, there was the initial 'rescued by a whale' incident, which had resulted in Rodney developing a certain amount of affection for the creatures, especially the one he had named 'Sam'. And then, the whales had warned Atlantis about the impending coronal mass ejection, which would have resulted in planet-wide extinction of all life on Lantea. Granted, their efforts to communicate had caused illness and even one death, but they were certainly a benevolent, intelligent species. Of course, they weren't actually whales, but the very large fish the Ancients had named flagisallus. Any fish that large, however, counted as a whale in Rodney's book.

"I suppose," said Rodney, after a while, "That I'm not approaching this situation with the right mindset. It's possible, of course, that I'm procrastinating, here, and should be on my way to the infirmary right now, but I can't help thinking that I haven't really confronted the whole issue with much in the way of scientific method. Yes, it may be true that my senses are deceiving me, but, even so, it might be useful to know just exactly the full extent of my self-deception." He gave a determined little nod and stood up, closed his eyes, opened them again, and turned to face his hallucination.

It bobbed away to retain its position over and to the side of his left shoulder. Rodney tried turning faster, but the thing simply scooted over, as if tethered, and no matter how quickly he turned, Rodney couldn't manage to face the creature directly. It was like having a Goodyear blimp fastened by a short line to the top of his arm. Rodney was breathing hard and dizzy from his spinning. He put his hands on his knees and his head down; the whale bobbed lower to accommodate his change of position.

"This is ridiculous!" squeaked Rodney.

He straightened up and carefully turned just his head, his body remaining stationary. The whale stayed still. Rodney looked at it. It looked back. His eyes wandered over its body, from its huge head to its undulating tail. It was vast and yet seemed to fit into his room quite naturally, as if the space around it bent, Tardis-like, to accommodate its bulk.

"Nice trick, if you can pull it off," said Rodney. The whale's eye seemed, for a second, to twinkle with pride.

Rodney knew he was definitely procrastinating, now, in that he was resisting reaching out to touch the apparition, not wanting to give it any more grounding in his reality than it had already wrested by force, but, ever the scientist, Rodney decided the experiment had to be undertaken. He put out a cautious hand and slowly brought it into contact with the whale's skin, fully expecting to feel nothing and to see his fingertips penetrate the illusion. Maybe it would even burst, like a balloon or a soap bubble. Instead, he felt warm resistance, like a very firm bath sponge, and a faint tingling, which ran up his arm and made him shiver. He placed the flat of his hand against the whale's side. It was definitely there, if he believed his own senses, which, hey, actually, maybe he didn't. And, what's more, he heard, or imagined he heard, a very distant, but resonant sigh, like water gently running out of an enormous cavern. Rodney smiled.

oOo

He continued to collect data. The whale seemed to retain its position as he moved, but did this hold true no matter what he did? Rodney marched about the room, then he jogged, then he ran and bounded, leaping up onto his bed and jumping off the other side, careening off walls, even bouncing up and down on the bed. There did seem to be some play in its position; it bobbed further ahead if he slowed down or stopped, and lagged slightly behind when he ran. A few seconds in a side-stepping skip to and fro resulted in, to his right, the whale moving slightly further away, and to the left, its flipper spongily flapping in his face. But just as Rodney found himself thinking that the creature at least had the decency to obey some of the laws of physics, he realised how ridiculous that statement really was. Firstly, the thing wasn't taking a blind bit of notice of gravity, was it? And secondly, it pretty much did its own thing in terms of its interaction with other solid objects, i.e. Rodney's room, his furniture, himself. He had already observed that the whale could fit, quite naturally and pleasantly, within the bounds of the walls, but as he had moved around the room, he had also observed that it could swim in and out of solid objects as if they weren't there. And yet if he reached out to touch it, there it was, solid and warm, yielding as a really good orthopaedic mattress. At this point, and long overdue, thought a detached part of Rodney's mind, he freaked out. 


	2. Chapter 2

"You don't get to do that!" Rodney spluttered, pointing at the whale's large, benevolent eye, his finger vibrating with tension. "You don't get to just pick and choose which laws of physics you're going to obey! You don't just wake up one morning and say, 'Oh, hey, I think I fancy a bit of inertia today, with maybe a dash of momentum, but, hold the gravity, thanks!' You're not ordering coffee!"

Rodney, breathing hard, sweat pricking on his forehead, observed the trembling finger between himself and the whale. His eyes flicked back up to meet the whale's calm gaze and he felt the tension go out of his finger, his arm, the muscles in his neck, which had stiffened as he had twisted them awkwardly to confront the creature. He drooped. He rubbed his eyes with one hand.

"Okay," he said, his voice embarrassingly small and shaky. "Okay, so I'm arguing about the laws of physics with an imaginary whale. Move along, nothing to see here, it's just Rodney McKay, finally earning his ticket to the funny farm, finally going totally, fruit-looping crazy, just as everyone always knew he would." As Rodney lay down, flat on his back, on the floor, he imagined Carson's voice, gently rebuking his choice of terminology.

"There's no shame in having a mental illness, Rodney, no more than there would be with a physical illness. It just means you need some help to get better."

Rodney sighed and closed his eyes. Mentally ill, he thought. Okay, fair enough, but why in the name of two galaxies, why a whale?

"So, suppose we consider this to be something in the nature of a safety valve," he said, still with his eyes closed. "Take one vastly superior intellect, apply force in the form of a galaxy full of space vampires and other assorted horrors, maintain pressure over several years, and, voilà! Said intellect produces giant floating whale. Why?" Rodney opened his eyes, turned his head and rested it on his crooked arm. The whale's eye was once again opposite his. It had remained horizontal and Rodney wondered if it would retain its orientation if he stood on his head. He found himself on all fours, trying to remember, from thankfully far distant, hated gym classes, how to do a headstand. Then he sat back on his heels, fingers snapping, a light bulb flashing to life in his mind.

"Aha! Yes! Because what do I really need? What's going to force me to stop and take a break and, you know, just have some fun? No, I admit an imaginary whale doesn't spring immediately to mind, but, hey, this is my mind! My mind with all its millions of convoluted synaptic pathways sparking constantly with new ideas! So!" he said to the whale, "you're a product of my intellect, my genius, designed to get me to kick back and relax for a few hours, days, whatever, and then, I'm guessing, 'Poof!' Rodney made his best attempt at a gesture signifying a spontaneously vanishing hallucinatory whale. "Gone! Normal service resumed!"

The whale regarded him with a faint air of scepticism, which Rodney defiantly ignored. He realised that one of his convoluted pathways of thought, that had been meandering here and there, minding its own business, had emerged from the intellectual undergrowth with a name attached.

"Harvey," he said, recalling the old movie where the James Stewart character's imaginary (or possibly not imaginary) giant rabbit friend had gone by that name. "Your name is Harvey."

The whale blinked in neutral acknowledgement.

"So!" said Rodney, rubbing his hands together. "Let's investigate the hypothesis, 'Harvey will remain horizontal, independent of the orientation of Dr M R McKay!"

The following attempt at a headstand would have achieved zero marks for style and grace and was characterized by flailing legs, grunting sounds and extremely short duration. Rodney collapsed, red-faced, rubbing the top of his head.

"Ow," he commented. "But, on the upside, score one for the hypothesis."

He spent the next ten minutes in a variety of more or less precarious positions; he leant against the wall at different angles, he lay on the floor with his legs propped on the bed, trying to maintain a straight line with his body, he even tried lying on his back, legs up the wall and pushing with his feet to form a hypotenuse, but concluded that he didn't possess sufficient core strength. He collapsed back onto the floor, panting and sweaty, but satisfied with the extent of his data and the conclusion he had drawn. He turned his head, to see that Harvey was swimming, half-in, half-out of the floor.

"Horizontal it is, then," Rodney wheezed, exhausted, whereupon the whale slowly, and with heavy cetacean irony, rotated through ninety degrees, so that it faced the ceiling and then, disregarding its impalement on Rodney's harpoon-like frown, continued for a further one hundred and eighty degrees, waggled its tail in flagrant joyful defiance, then continued its arc, to resume its former position, half-submerged in the floor.

Rodney glared.

"You think you're so funny, don't you?" he said irritably. "Let's all wind up the scientist, why not!"

He stayed on the floor, fingers drumming against the smooth surface, thinking.

"Maybe I'm still going about this the wrong way," he mused. "Scientific method is obviously wasted on you."

His stomach rumbled. There was nothing much left from his early morning raid, and he really fancied a proper meal.

"What time is it anyway?" he said, hauling himself up off the floor. "Ooh, late." He stood up. "So, I'm taking my whale for a walk, then."

Rodney squared his shoulders, thrust out his chin and headed for the door, determined to hold together the image of Chief Science Officer, cantankerous and irascible, perhaps, but absolutely whale-free.

This attitude was derailed straight away at the threshold of his room, when he glanced to his left and saw Harvey's front half projecting into the hallway, like a vast hunting trophy. He stretched his neck backward, while keeping his body in place, so that he could admire the effect of the tail end sticking out of his bedroom wall and gently swishing up and down. His head moved back and forth a few times and a smirk may have appeared, accompanied by a giggle, totally inappropriate to the serious, unwhaled persona he had been planning to maintain.

The whale regarded him with easy complaisance, amused by his amusement, its expression conveying, to Rodney, the words, "It's not really that funny, you know."

"It is from where I'm standing!" said Rodney.

"McKay!"

Rodney jumped and spun round, causing Harvey to explode out of the wall and fill the corridor: Ronon, hands in pockets, one eyebrow raised in question.

"Oh, er, Ronon! Hello! Um..." The eyebrow remained in place. "Just checking out this wall, here. Do you think there's a crack?" Rodney ran his hands over the perfectly clear, smooth expanse of Ancient plaster, or whatever they used back then. "Because I thought I saw..."

"No," said Ronon, bluntly. "If you want food, you'd better hurry up. Good stuff's nearly gone." He lounged away down the hall.

oOo

Rodney found John in the mess hall, sitting alone, obviously nearly finished, but lingering over his dessert. He held a paperback in one hand and the other held his spoon, poised, halfway to his mouth. Rodney grabbed a tray and had the servers fill it with something that was probably meat, probably vegetables and some kind of pudding. He suppressed an urge to ask Harvey if he'd like anything. Rodney approached John, whose spoonful had still not made it to his mouth. He sat down in the empty seat to John's right. John's eyes moved from his book to his friend. He lowered his spoon.

"Headache gone?

"What? Oh, yes, all gone now!"

"Something wrong, McKay?" John patted at his hair with one hand.

"No, nothing. Nothing at all," said Rodney, quickly, forcing his gaze onto his plate and determinedly applying himself to his food. He wondered how John would have responded if he'd said, "Yes, there's a whale on your head."

John had put down his book. War and Peace. Rodney and Harvey looked at each other.

"You're still reading that?"

"On and off." John picked up the book and idly flicked through the pages he'd read so far. "Sometimes it's a bit too much like real life, though; conflict, battles and so on."

"No conflict or battles at the moment," said Rodney, chirpily, through a mouthful of his probably-meat.

"Huh. There might be tomorrow."

Rodney looked questioningly around a gently waving fin.

"Daedalus gets here tomorrow, remember?" said John.

"Ooh, resupply! Chocolate!"

"And meetings," drawled John, morosely.

Rodney's face fell.

"Caldwell won't need me, will he?"

"I'm slated for a review first, which'll mean loads of 'suggestions' for improvement, or in other words, ways Caldwell thinks he could do the job better." John poked the spoon bitterly into his remaining dessert. "But then it's me, you and Elizabeth, for some kind of interrogation, no doubt."

Rodney sorted through his pile of vegetables consideringly, looking for his favourites. He'd never taken a tethered virtual whale to a meeting before - who had? It was an intriguing opportunity.

John finally finished his dessert, and with a muttered, "Gonna find something to hit, or shoot… maybe both," he departed.

oOo

Returning to his room, whale in tow, Rodney decided that, after all his earlier data-gathering antics, he was in rather urgent need of a shower. He stood in the middle of the room, irresolute.

"How's this going to work? Because I'm not sure how I feel about you coming in the shower with me." He pictured himself naked in the shower stall, his every... er... attribute under the close scrutiny of a giant eye. Harvey remained impassive.

"Well, yes, I suppose you're right; you don't have any clothes on. But that's hardly the point: you're a whale." He sighed. "Maybe if I lean against the wall the whole time, then you'll be on the other side. Or, can you see through walls? Or, if you're a part of my consciousness, like that whole Sam Carter thing..." He paused for a moment, in pleasurable reminiscence. "Anyway, if you're part of me, that would be like hiding from myself." He shook his head and waved a hand in dismissal. "Oh, forget the philosophy, I'm just going to do it! After all, it's not as if you haven't been to the bathroom with me already, and that was embarrassing enough, and, no, I don't believe you didn't look! With an eye that size? Come on!"

While he was speaking, Rodney had impatiently flung his clothes off, leaving them strewn about the room. He slapped at the shower controls irritably, waited for the water to run hot, and stepped in, closing his eyes in a vain attempt to convince himself that his status was currently whale-free. He washed away the results of the day's investigations and relaxed under the wonderful torrent of warmth, his forehead resting gently against the wall. An itch sprang to life between his shoulder blades and he reached his left arm around and up, his shoulder clicking in protest. He wriggled his thumb back and forth, but couldn't quite reach the itch. He tried a top-down approach with his right arm, but couldn't quite make his fingers walk far enough down his spine. Surely they should meet in the middle? Rodney knew Teyla could get her hands to join. He tried it the other way round, left hand down from the top, right hand round and up, but that was even worse. He growled in frustration and wriggled both shoulders, but the itch didn't disperse.

Then something firm but gentle tapped him on his left shoulder; just a whisper of sensation, there and gone. Rodney froze. The tiny pat came again.

"Yes. Okay. Thanks," he said, tightly.

He felt the gentle rubberiness of the whale's fin touch him between his shoulder blades in exactly the right spot. It moved up and down a few times, then withdrew.

"Um... bit more, please."

The fin resumed, slightly more firmly. Rodney sighed.

"That's got it."


	3. Chapter 3

Rodney stood, casually leaning against the railing, his sideways slouch almost Sheppard-like in its nonchalance. He appeared, to the nervous Gate technicians at least, to be overseeing the work proceeding on the control level, but actually he was enjoying the effect created by Harvey's blatant disregard for the conventions of reality. The whale had expanded to fill the Gateroom, its tail idly flapping at the ancient ring, its head floating above the main staircase. If anybody that Rodney felt more than usually antagonistic toward passed within range, Harvey would casually flick them with the tip of a fin.

"Rodney!"

He turned, and Harvey burst joyfully onto the control level.

"Elizabeth, good morning!" he replied, with a smile.

She froze, completely taken aback. "You're very cheerful, this morning, Rodney. You must be feeling better!"

"Well, maybe that... headache was exactly what I needed. Now I'm rested and refreshed and ready to rejoin the fray!" he exclaimed, ridiculously pleased with his alliteration.

Elizabeth smiled and then looked through Harvey's looming bulk to greet Colonel Caldwell, who, if he had known it, received a hearty swipe from a flipper as he passed beneath. John followed in his wake, disgruntled, and obviously trying to suppress a scowl; it looked like he'd already been subjected to Caldwell's 'suggestions' on how the organisation of the military contingent of Atlantis could be improved. The fin gently waggled through John's hair and he put up one hand to scratch his head. Interesting, thought Rodney.

Caldwell immediately tried to dominate, ushering Elizabeth toward the meeting room, in what Rodney considered to be a patronising, if not condescending manner. Elizabeth, not easily manipulated, merely stood her ground and gestured to Caldwell to go first. John went to follow, his hangdog expression still firmly in place, but Rodney pushed in front, earning himself not just a half-hearted grunt of annoyance from John, but the chance to secure the seat to Caldwell's right.

The meeting concerned an itemized list of queries from General Landry, covering the last year's mission reports, on which Landry had, Caldwell informed them, felt there was significant cause for concern and/or need for clarification. Such raking over the coals of past missions was, in Rodney's opinion, not only a huge waste of time and energy, but was also insulting and undermining. Normally, he would have entered such a meeting with extremely thinly-veiled reluctance, and would have progressed from there through terse, resentful, impatient, then indignant and even as far as downright truculent. If he had made it to the end of the meeting without storming out, his exit would have been punctuated by, at the very least, a broadly-scattered volley of pithy observations on the lack of respect shown to his knowledge, experience and vast intellect, and almost certainly concluded with an actual flounce.

Today, Rodney's general demeanour only ever reached the heights of mild irritation and concern for his friends, as he watched the lines around Elizabeth's mouth tighten and John's expression set hard into what Rodney referred to as his 'chain of command' face, which was how John looked when he really wanted to punch a superior officer. It was, in the main, an expression of suppressed anger, but Rodney found it rather sad today, as he wasn't angry himself; he knew how dedicated John was to Atlantis and to the expedition personnel, how brave and self-sacrificing, and to see him so chastened and so beaten down, because of what Rodney considered to be an arbitrary hierarchy, was just plain wrong.

His own responses to Landry's queries were characterized by an unusual, for Rodney, conciseness and neutrality, no matter how foolish the point being queried. They were also characterized by slouching, slumping and smirking, and at one point an out-and-out bark of laughter escaped, which he cleverly disguised as a kind of cough/sneeze thing, of which everyone was too polite to take much notice.

At the conclusion of the meeting, Rodney actually shook Caldwell's hand and observed the man's puzzled frown and contemptuous sneer with amusement. As he walked away, he heard Caldwell muttering disparagingly to Elizabeth about the manners and possibly morals of civilian scientists; Rodney didn't care.

"McKay!" John stopped him, by the simple expedient of standing solidly in his way. "What was that?"

"What was what?" Rodney asked, because he knew it would be annoying, and annoyance directed at him would surely distract John from the more annoying annoyance caused by Caldwell and Landry. Probably.

"That..." John pointed back at the meeting room. "You..." He took a breath and moved right into Rodney's space, lowering his voice. "You, making goo-goo eyes at Caldwell, like he's your new boyfriend or something!"

Rodney exploded with laughter, making John step back, his expression, comprehensible only to the initiated, a combination of confusion (understandable), annoyance (check) and just a slight tinge of hurt (hmm...).

"It's just something new I'm trying," Rodney explained. "Did you see Caldwell's face? He didn't know what to think!"

John frowned. Neither did he, apparently. "You shouldn't wind him up, Rodney," said John.

"Why not? He takes himself so seriously, he should be wound up! He's..." Rodney flapped his hands, searching for an apt phrase. "He's so ripe for winding up, he's like a fat, juicy fruit on a winding up tree!" He broke off and looked thoughtful. "That doesn't really work, does it? Anyway, he deserved it, the way he was carrying on!"

"He was just speaking for General Landry, who, in case you hadn't realised, could have me recalled to Earth!"

"You didn't do anything wrong!" replied Rodney. "You had your best teeth-gritted, 'in the presence of a superior officer' face on!"

John looked like he wanted to deny having any such expression, but a hand came up and rubbed his jaw as if it was aching from all the teeth-gritting.

"I don't know what's gotten into you, Rodney," he said. "You been playing with any Ancient gizmos lately?"

"Firstly, it's actually my job to 'play with Ancient gizmos', as you so adroitly put it, and secondly," continued Rodney hotly, "I don't see why, just because I haven't been deploying my ingeniously excoriating wit every five minutes, you start suspecting that I'm under an alien influence!"

He chose to flounce off at this point, before John came any closer to the truth.

oOo

Rodney reached his lab, closed the door and sat down. He allowed his mouth to curve into a mischievous smile as he recalled how Harvey had enlivened the meeting by bobbing up and down as if he were gently bouncing on Caldwell's head. He chortled as he remembered the whale settling down nicely onto Caldwell's shoulders, obscuring his face completely, as Rodney himself had slouched lower and lower in his seat. But, although he had, at the time, laughed out loud when, as John was asked to explain yet another command decision, Harvey had reared up, his mouth open, and had pretended to swallow Caldwell whole, now Rodney felt slightly empty. Harvey gently bumped his shoulder and he looked into the sympathetic depths of the giant eye. He recalled the time when he had found the Ancient shield device and how light-hearted he and John had been, playing with it like a couple of school kids. They never seemed to have time for that kind of fun any more, their lives and responsibilities being what they were, and, strangely, it had taken a (possibly) imaginary whale to bring the matter to the forefront of Rodney's much-in-demand attention. This new perspective on his life made Rodney sure of one thing: John needed his own Harvey.

Rodney pondered. What did John normally do for fun, when he got half a chance? He watched football and movies, played video games, let Teyla beat him up, ran and fought with Ronon. Rodney, with Harvey's encouraging presence hovering over him, decided that John needed something new; something unexpected and whale-like in its ability to alter his current 'weight-of-the-world' mindset. Rodney tapped his radio headset.

"Sheppard?"

"Go ahead, McKay."

"Jumper Four needs a test-flight. Are you busy?"

"Jumper Four? Radek said the inertial dampeners were off-line."

"I've fixed them," lied Rodney.

"Oh. I need a coupla' hours. Paperwork to do."

"Fifteen hundred?"

"Sure. Sheppard out."

Rodney absently put up a hand to pat a waggling fin. "Yes, I think he sounds depressed too."

oOo

With the help of Harvey's somehow calming yet stimulating presence, Rodney had achieved a pleasing few hours work by the time he downed tools, or rather, flexed his typing fingers and eased out his stuff back, and made his way to the Jumper bay. John was already there, listlessly bringing Jumper Four to life, his shoulders slightly too rounded, his hair just a little less springy than usual.

Rodney sat down in the co-pilot's seat, not looking too closely at Harvey, who was patently screwing with the dimensions of the Jumper and possibly space itself, and why not space-time, in fact? Rodney had achieved a remarkable, perhaps even a suspicious amount in a seemingly short duration and had needed a correspondingly large lunch. Speaking of which...

"Have you eaten?"

John looked puzzled. "Breakfast?"

"Lunch!"

"Um... Was it roast turkey today?"

"No! That was yesterday! But, you're in luck, there were some turkey sandwiches and seeing as I'm such a good friend and you're such an idiot..."

"Hey!"

"...I brought you one."

"Oh. Thanks!"

"Ah, you might want to eat it now, though, rather than in-flight."

"Why? I can eat and fly at the same time!" John regarded him suspiciously, through Harvey's eager expression. (Whales liked flying? Who knew?) "You have fixed it, haven't you?"

"Yes! Well, that's what you're here to ascertain!"

John ate his sandwich, devouring it in about two bites, like a hungry crocodile. He cleared their flight with the Control Tower and set the Jumper into its automatic take-off mode. They cleared the Bay hatch without incident and John took over manual control, taking the Jumper in a gentle glide, down over the towers and spires between the piers.

"Feels a bit off," he said.

"Oh, well never mind," said Rodney blithely, asking prior forgiveness of his stomach and regretting his large lunch. "Why don't you put her through her paces and I'll keep an eye on the read-outs?"

John took the Jumper up in a slow, shallow spiral. Rodney felt both gravity and centrifugal force begin to act on his curried tava beans.

"You sure about this, McKay? Inertial dampeners feel real sluggish, to me."

"Yes," said Rodney, steeling himself. "Quite sure. Go for it."

John's eyes narrowed in focus and his mouth tilted up very slightly at one corner. Suddenly Rodney felt his body slammed back against his seat and all he could see through his half-closed eyes was bright blue sky. His fingers dug into the padding and he clamped his mouth shut and tried to breathe deeply. The sky slowly changed to a deep indigo and Rodney felt his stomach rise to its customary position and then rise further into the equal but opposite discomfort of weightlessness. He swallowed convulsively and bit back a pleading whimper as the screen was gradually filled up with the blue and green cloud-wreathed surface of the planet. There was a loud, wild whoop from his left and turned his head to see Harvey's bright eye and John's exhilarated grin. Rodney forced a sickly smile in return, which dropped off his face like a brick as soon as John's attention returned to his flying.

There were loops; there were twirls. Rodney didn't know the technical terms and didn't care to. He was heartily glad when the Jumper descended sedately to the floor of the Bay, and it and his abused stomach were once more static. Stationary. Immobile.

"I guess they're not fixed, then!" came John's cheery voice.

Rodney opened his eyes but didn't turn his head; he didn't think he could cope with the motion.

"You alright, McKay? McKay?"

John's face appeared, seemingly from out of Harvey's mouth. He was bright-eyed and his hair looked as if it had regained its zest for life, but his eyes were concerned.

"Sorry about that,” he said. “I guess I got a bit carried away. I didn't realise how much I missed being able to feel it, you know? Really feel the motion through your body? The G-force?"

Rodney closed his eyes again and swallowed.

"C'mon, you need a lie down, or some fresh air, or something."

Rodney allowed himself to be steered out of the Jumper and across the Bay.


	4. Chapter 4

It was another sacrifice, but it would be worth it, Rodney hoped. He had accepted the nausea induced by a severely underdamped Jumper flight, in order to perk up his jaded friend; now he would accept the privations and probably boredom of a trip to the mainland in order to continue his campaign. The botanists had been wanting to go for a while and the geologists were keen too, so all that was needed was a protection team and a window of opportunity. Rodney made space in his busy schedule and dropped a hint in Elizabeth's receptive ear that he thought her Military Commander could do with an easy mission. She had been wearily pleased with the idea and had said, looking dispiritedly at her stack of datapads, that she would have liked to come too. Anyway, all was arranged, and Rodney had also been in action behind the scenes, tracking down various items of sporting and search and rescue equipment and inciting Ronon to smuggle John's golf clubs onto the Jumper, because they were heavy and Rodney didn't want to carry them himself.

In the end they took two Jumpers and set up their camp in an area of botanic and geological interest. There were eight 'scientists' to be sneered at, although, in the interests of harmony, Rodney had decided to keep the sneering to a minimum. John had supplemented his team with four Marines (not 'grunts', Rodney told himself), and as Rodney watched them unload the Jumpers and set up the camp, he reflected that he hadn't yet calibrated his sneering range and so wasn't quite sure what constituted minimum setting.

Harvey still floated, shadow-like, by Rodney's side, and it was funny how quickly one could get used to such things. The whale seemed to be generally interested in what was going on and had expanded in an experimental way over the whole area and then settled down to more manageable proportions. Rodney remembered John's comment when he had first seen an adult flagisallus, that they were about the size of a football field; he was glad Harvey didn't feel the need to take up that much space all the time. He thought that Harvey was looking a bit more insubstantial than he remembered, but supposed it was probably just the effect of the bright sunshine.

Soon the camp was set up, the plant and rock people were doing planty, rocky things and the soldier-boys were happy with their perimeter and whatever else they did, and Rodney felt, impatiently, that it was high time John was free to appreciate his efforts, which he had set out in one of the Jumpers. He dragged John inside and gestured toward the bench seat.

John's eyes scanned the climbing equipment, the football, the baseball, bat and catcher's mitt, his golf clubs. Rodney watched, nervously hoping that John wouldn't go all military and 'mission-faced'. He relaxed when a smile started at one corner of John's mouth and spread across his face.

"You made me a sports' camp, Rodney!"

"Yes. I did," said Rodney, proudly.

oOo

Rodney wouldn't go so far as to say, 'A good time was had by all,' because, sports? Climbing? Not really his thing; and some of the bio/geo-types weren't that happy either, when John started bounding about, organising them into teams. Rodney did his best to join in with at least some of the activities, which, anyway, had to be scheduled around the scientific and military running of the camp, so, mercifully, weren't in progress all the time. He was concerned about Harvey, though, because, as he once more flinched away from a powerfully-hit baseball (those things were dangerous!), he noticed the whale looked thin and wispy, as if a light breeze might blow him away. And as he fell asleep that night and felt a very light brush against his cheek, he drowsily wondered if Harvey would still be there in the morning.

oOo

For a moment, when he woke up, the clear dawn light shining through the fabric of the tent, he thought Harvey was looming at his shoulder as usual, but then he felt an enthusiastic shove rather than a gentle pat, and he realised it was John. Harvey had gone, and Rodney's face must have reflected his disappointment.

"Look, I know I said we'd climb that ridge today, but I didn't really mean everyone had to or no barbecue!"

"I know that. I'm just a bit tired still."

"We can fix that! Unless the geologists have drunk all the coffee! You gotta watch those guys!" John dived out of the tent and Rodney sat up and looked over both shoulders, squirmed right around in his sleeping bag several times, and then concluded that, not only was he unequivocally whaleless, but also that his sleeping bag was so tightly screwed around his body and arms that he was effectively pinioned. It was at this moment that John put his head into the tent carrying a mug of coffee. He saw Rodney's predicament, shook his head with a perplexed smirk, disappeared briefly and then reappeared to spin Rodney round until he could move freely.

"Maybe you should have your coffee outside," he said.

Rodney forced a smile of agreement.

oOo

It had been a good day, after all, Rodney thought as he sat by their evening campfire. He'd done some work on his laptop, watched John hang by his fingertips from a vertiginous cliff (with a safety rope) and had a pleasant afternoon nap in the shade of some gently rustling trees. Once or twice he thought he felt a presence at his shoulder, but when he turned his head, there was nothing there.

Everybody, apart from the Marines on watch, was sitting around the fire, in small groups, murmuring quietly, with the occasional raised voice or shout of laughter. Rodney, John, Teyla and Ronon sat together, in a row, silent, but content in their silence, each able to guess the others' thoughts. Rodney wondered what reaction he'd get if he told them about Harvey.

John would laugh his ass off, his face creasing up, one hand slapping his thigh and the other over his eyes, because nobody should see John Sheppard's tears, not even those induced by manic hysteria. Gradually, he'd regain control, and then he'd look at Rodney, or meet Ronon's eyes, and that would set him off again. And so on, for several cycles, until suddenly he'd come over all team-leaderish and bundle everybody, helter-skelter, back to Atlantis so that he could whisk Rodney straight to the infirmary to insist on a full battery of tests.

Ronon would look at him, from beneath beetling brows, because, although he might not express himself verbally, it wasn't as if he didn't care. Having assured himself of Rodney's physical well-being, he would shrug and dismiss the whole thing from his mind.

Teyla would be concerned, interested and non-judgemental, and would probably speak calmly about Rodney's whale and its role as a possible spirit guide. She would have examples, not just from Athosian culture, but from other peoples of the galaxy, and could almost certainly be relied upon to tell a story about something similar that had happened to somebody she knew. Rodney felt his heart-rate and breathing ease just by imagining the soft rise and fall of her voice, its gentle cadences and occasional dry humour.

He wouldn't tell them. He didn't need to. He was glad it had happened, while unsure that anything actually had. He had been diverted, for a while, from his life of crushing responsibility; his mind had had a much-needed holiday and, what's more, he'd done his best to pass on the favour, by being John's whale. Or maybe John would have something cooler, like, say, a sleek, black panther. No, he wouldn't, though, Rodney thought, he'd have a great, big, bounding dog that John would be delighted to see jumping up at people and leaving imaginary drool all over their clean uniforms and barking silently right in their faces. Rodney looked into the flames of the campfire and smiled as he saw leaping images of whales and dogs and other creatures, real and imagined.

oOo

The expedition returned to Atlantis, variously rested, refreshed and satisfied. Rodney trotted down the stairs from the Jumper Bay and there was Chuck, at his usual station on the control level.

"Anything happen while we were away?" asked Rodney.

Chuck shook his head. "Nothing much. Dr Weir had a day off, yesterday."

"A day off? Really? Why?"

"Headache, or something. She's fine, today, though."

Rodney's fingers twitched and his mind began to spin with activity. He marched across the walkway and tapped on the door frame. Elizabeth looked up from her datapad and smiled a mischievous smile. Her eyes were bright and her cheeks pink, but she seemed slightly distracted and her eyes kept flicking slightly to her left.

"Rodney! Did the mission go well?"

"Yes, thank you! Very well!" Rodney said. He wandered across the office, as if casually overseeing the team who were preparing to go through the Gate. Of course, he'd have to stand directly to Elizabeth's left. There was a choke of laughter from behind him.

 _Hello, Harvey_ , thought Rodney.


End file.
